“May she rest in peace.”
The response from Dillon was uncontrollable. “Well, I’m damned if I will.” He turned and brushed past the young receptionist, Gail, who had been standing at the door, and went out.
Dillon went through the crowd, angry beyond belief, pushing against Levin, who said, “Hey, watch it, old man.”
Dillon shook his head. “Sorry.” He pushed on and went out into the rain.
Levin waited and the young reporter said, “Something’s going on.”
Ferguson and the others emerged, pushed through the crowd and went out, and the receptionist appeared.
“What was all that about, Gail?” the young reporter asked.
“Don’t be daft. We have our ethics here. Anyway, it’s more than my job’s worth to talk to you.”
“Useless bitch.”
“Thanks very much,” she said, as she pulled on her coat.
Levin said to the young reporter loud enough for her to hear, “You shouldn’t speak to a lady like that. It’s not on.”
She flashed him a smile of gratitude, said to the other receptionist, “I’m going for my break,” and went out.
Levin followed. She hesitated on the step, faced by the pouring rain, and he put up his umbrella. It took a Russian, schooled at one of London’s greatest public schools, to sound so charming, and it had just the right rough edge to it.
“Some people just have no manners, but to speak to a lady like that…” He shook his head. “I should have punched him in the mouth.”
“Oh, he’s just stupid, but thanks for being so nice.”
“I don’t know where you’re going, but you’ll get soaked without my umbrella. Where are you going, by the way?”
“Oh, the Grenadier pub. I’m on a half shift until nine tonight, so I have sandwiches and a coffee there.”
“What a coincidence – I was going to call in there myself. Shall we go together?”
He shielded her from the heavy rain, an arm slightly around her waist. “Are you a reporter, too?” she asked.
“So they tell me.” They reached the pub. “Come on, in we go.” It was still early and there was plenty of room. He helped her off with her coat. “May I join you? I could do with a sandwich, too.”
She was obviously attracted. “Why not? Prawn on salad and tea.”
“Oh, we can do better than that.” He went to the bar, gave the waitress an order and came back with two glasses of champagne. “There you go.”
“I say, this is nice.” She was sparkling with pleasure.
“You deserve it. You’re in the death business. Not many people could do what you do.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” She drank the champagne and ate her sandwiches and he bought her another glass and got to work. “The things you have to put up with in your work. I mean, look at what happened earlier.”
She was a little tipsy and very flushed. “Well, I must admit, it was very unusual.”
“You were there?”
“Well, I showed them all in to the professor, so I was standing by the door when he told them his findings.”
“Just a moment.” Levin got up, went to the bar and returned with two more. “What were you saying? It must have been awful.”
“Well, I shouldn’t really say anything,” but she leaned forward.
The whole story came out, naturally, and then she checked her watch and gasped, “Oh, I’m late already.” She jumped up and he helped her into her coat.
“I’ll walk you back.” It was still raining. He said, “A pity you’re on shift tonight. We could have had dinner.”
“Oh, my boyfriend wouldn’t like that.”
Levin managed to stop himself laughing out loud. He took her to the mortuary entrance through the rain.
“Take care,” he said, and walked away.
And then, as he went to the entrance and paused to look back, he noticed a black hearse. Something made him pause. Rabbi Julian Bernstein emerged. Behind him, pallbearers came out with a coffin.
He watched it being put into the hearse, and the rear door closed. As Rabbi Bernstein got into the front of the hearse behind the driver and the pallbearers got into another limousine, Levin cut back. There was the name and telephone number of the undertaker in gold leaf under the tailgate. He memorized it and walked on to the Embassy. Once in his office, he phoned Ashimov.
“Things have moved.”
“Tell me.”
Levin did. “I told you they’d been clumsy, your IRA chums. It won’t take a man like Dillon long to see which way things have gone. You’d better see that Fitzgerald keeps his head down in Ibiza. Do you want me to go out there and take care of him?”
“Don’t be stupid, Igor, I need these people. Stay there, check out the funeral and keep an eye out for Ferguson and company.”
“So you don’t want me to knock off Dillon for you?”
“Not now. Just obey orders, Igor.”
Levin sat back and thought about it, then rang the undertakers. “I’m hoping to send flowers as a token of respect for Miss Hannah Bernstein. I’m not sure whether the body will be there or at home.”
“Oh, here overnight.”
“And the funeral?”
“Ten o’clock in the morning at Golders Green.”
“So kind.”
He thought about things for a while, then decided to go for a drive, which took him to Wapping and Cable Wharf and the Dark Man. It was almost night, lights on the river, and he parked, one of many cars, so things were busy. He went and stood on the edge of the wharf and lit a cigarette. He’d always liked rivers, the smell of them, the boats, but now he felt curiously empty. It was Bernstein. He kept thinking of her photo, the look on her face. Dammit, her death was not really his affair, there was an inevitability to it. So why did he feel as he did? The Jewish link? But that was nonsense. It had always meant little to him, and death had been a way of life for years.
“Pull yourself together, Igor,” he murmured, and flicked his cigarette into the Thames. He took a small leather pouch from his pocket, extracted a minuscule earpiece, another device developed by the GRU, and pushed it into his right ear. The chip it contained enhanced sound considerably. Then he crossed the wharf and entered the Dark Man.
Ferguson, Dillon and the Salters were all there, including Roper in his wheelchair. They had the corner booth, but the bar itself was busy. Levin got a large vodka and helped himself to an Evening Standard someone had left. He had luck then, for a man and a woman in a small two-person booth next to his quarry got up to go, and Levin moved fast to take their place. He was protected from view by the wooden wall between the booths, but when he gave his earpiece a quarter turn, he could hear what was going on perfectly. He started to work his way through the newspaper and listened attentively.
Billy Salter was talking. “What’s going on? This bird, this Mary Killane. What’s the connection?”
It was Roper who intervened. “An IRA connection from childhood. Her father was a Provo hard man. He died of cancer years ago in the Maze Prison. The mother took the girl to Dublin when she was very young.”
“You’ve checked out what happened to her thoroughly?”
“Charles, I could tell you the schools she went to, where she trained as a nurse. All that.”
“Have you checked whether she was a member of the IRA herself?”
“As well as I could, and she wasn’t.”
“Was she a member of any political groups, anything like that?”
“As far as I can tell, which is considerable, she’s not a member of any group connected to Sinn Fein, I can guarantee that.”
It was Dillon who cut in. “She wouldn’t be. Her worth would be her being in the Republic and uninvolved. Going by her age, she’d be a sleeper.”